Abhijit Patil, cofounder of NXG, is part of the Zone Startups incubator, creating 3D scanning and printing software systems that could be applied to both ecommerce as well as medical pre-surgery applications.

The startup has created a 3D-scanning software system for smartphones that makes online shopping for clothing easier. By holding the phone camera in front of the individual's face and punching in a few measurements, a 3D scanned version of the end consumer wearing the product is created.

The startup plans on launching its services in the next five months. According to Ajay Ramasubramaniam, president of Zone Startups India, Dimension NXG's software system addresses the problem of returns due to size issues.

"Initially, 3D printing was used largely for prototyping. Startups in this sector in India are emerging with interesting innovations and diverse applications," said Ramasubramaniam. "Dimension NXG has been able to create a 3D-printed body in 15 minutes, which will soon be brought down to 30 seconds. This can be used by surgeons for preplanning surgeries on 3D-printed organs before performing the actual surgery."

Salil Musale, executive director at Astarc Ventures, recently travelled to Bengaluru scouting for 3D-printing startups. He said, he came across 3D-printing startups in bioincubators creating medical devices that could potentially disrupt the healthcare system in India. In terms of investment, his interest does not lie in hardware but software systems within the sector.

Besides medical applications, investors are also looking at 3D printing in gaming. Apoorv Ranjan, founder of Venture Catalysts, a seed investment platform, along with investor Samir Somaiya, president of Somaiya Group, plan to invest in Chess Automate, a chess board game whose 3D-printed hardware system will be used for creating a series of other games.

Meanwhile, students are eagerly researching the possibilities of applying 3D technology in various sectors from architecture to medicine. According to Aparna Rao, a senior project manager at Desai Sethi Centre for Entrepreneurship, a pre-incubation support centre for IIT Bombay, there have been a few external queries for 3D-printing startup ideas.

"There are some students interested in this space who are currently in private incubators, as well as others who are pursuing personal research projects," said Rao.

In India, data from VCCEdge indicates that 32 funding deals worth $58 million were made in the 3D-printing sector during the last 10 years. The dominant segments appear to be personalised printing services and ecommerce.